Console Corner: Bloodborne review

Damien Lucas

Beautiful and nightmare-inducing action-RPG restores faith in console’s exclusives after criticism of The Order

Long load times one of the very few negatives

Rating: 9.5/10

Faith in PlayStation 4 exclusive titles has been fully restored thanks to the brilliant Bloodborne.

I am not, and have never been, a big RPG fan and have never given any sufficient amount of time to the likes of Zelda, Final Fantasy and World Of Warcraft.

They just don’t do it for me from a gaming point of view. But my brother has always loved them and been particularly good at them and I always wanted to get into them, but couldn’t. So imagine my frustration, after pledging to give Bloodborne a chance to change all that, when I died 37 times (YES THIRTY SEVEN) when taking on the first adversary in the game.

This actually throws up one of the only bad points about Bloodborne I experienced – load times. Waiting for ages while a game loaded up used to just go with the territory back in the day, it was just accepted.

But with the advancements in tech and spec over the last 10 years they have almost become a thing of the past. But in Bloodborne you are looking at around 40 seconds of waiting (doesn’t sound much but feels like an eternity) each time.

So factoring in the wait times, I told myself I would go to 40 attempts to kill this huge werewolf creature. You are given two weapons before starting off on your nightmare-inducing journey through Yharnam, but when I tried to select them and press ‘Use’ they were just faded out (this is my lack of RPG intelligence coming back to bite me).

So I called my brother and he suggested I would probably have to assign the weapons to an inventory or slot somewhere before I could use them.

And thank god he was right. So I walked back in the room pistol in one hand, saw in the other and annihilated this beast with ease. I was suddenly hooked.

This game is so beautiful, so massive, so expertly and lovingly made with a first class fighting mechanic. It is all intertwined with a brilliant storyline laden in dark, religious undertones.

Where The Order: 1886 damaged the PS4 exclusive rep with its lack of variety, length and originality, this action-RPG does everything and more to atone for it. The addition of online adds a whole new level of engagement to what is surely the best game of the year so far ahead of Dying Light.

This game is so beautiful, so massive, so expertly and lovingly made with a first class fighting mechanic. It is all intertwined with a brilliant storyline laden in dark, religious undertones.

Damien Lucas, reviewer

Reviews have been glowing across the board with the game receiving no lower than a 9 so far. And it is easy to see why, it is a real triumph in every sense (except load times) Rating: 9.5/10.